Page 1 of Yasmin and the Yeti (Alien Abduction #25)

CHAPTER ONE

C old.

Yasmin shivered and automatically reached for her blanket, but her hand found cold metal instead.

Metal?

Why was there metal in her bed? She tried to open her eyes but her eyelids were heavy and unresponsive and she had to blink several times before they opened enough for her to see.

A white ceiling hovered over her head, illuminated by some unseen light source that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. Not her ceiling.

Where am I?

Her body felt too heavy to move, but she finally managed to roll onto one side and saw bars.

Bars? Am I in jail?

And what kind of jail was this? Why had they left her lying on a cold metal floor?

She forced her reluctant body into a sitting position, putting a hand to her aching head as she tried to remember.

A wave of dizziness crashed over her, bringing with it flashes of memory like broken glass.

Walking to the bus stop as she did every night after work.

A heavy fog drifting in, gradually obscuring her surroundings.

A whiff of something repulsive, like the sickly smell of rotting meat, and the sound of heavy footsteps behind her.

She’d tried to tell herself she was perfectly safe, that she’d walked down that street every day for the past two years, but an odd sense of panic started to creep over her. The hairs on the back of her neck rose and before she could stop herself, she whirled around.

There was a dark-haired man right behind her, dressed in a plain grey coverall. He looked ordinary enough, but there was something wrong about him. Before she could figure out what it was, he raised his hand and everything went dark.

Whoever had been behind her must have been responsible for bringing her here. But where was here ? And why was she here?

She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly realizing that her clothes were gone.

They’d been replaced by some kind of brief white garment that only fastened at the shoulders and the waist, leaving her arms and legs bare.

She tried to stand, hoping to get a better look at her surroundings, but her legs were too weak to support her.

The aftereffects of whatever had been used to sedate her still weighed her down.

She took a deep breath and tried again, half crawling over to the bars.

There were more cells on the other side of a narrow corridor.

Most of them were empty, but the one across from her was occupied by…

She blinked again. Why was an animal in jail?

And not any kind of animal she had ever seen before.

It had brightly colored feathers, like a parrot—if a parrot were six feet tall.

It had piercing yellow eyes and a huge, predatory-looking beak.

When it saw her watching it, it opened its mouth and let out a harsh squawk.

She had the distinct impression it was asking her something.

When she didn’t respond, it squawked again, a rapid series of sounds that seemed far more complex than normal bird calls.

“Are… are you trying to talk to me?”

It tilted its head, inspecting her, and there was something disturbingly intelligent about those yellow eyes. It raised a hand with four thin digits tipped with long sharp claws. It pointed at itself and made one of those squawking noises again. Then, it pointed at her.

“Are you asking me my name? I’m Yasmin. Yasmin,” she repeated, pointing at herself.

The bird creature managed to reproduce the sound remarkably well. “ Yass-meen. ”

“That’s right, but I’m not sure I can pronounce your name. Can you say it again?”

It made what sounded like the same noise and she did her best to imitate it.

“ Kra… Kra’caow ?”

It was the closest she could get and after a couple more attempts, Kra’caow shrugged in an oddly human gesture and nodded. It tilted its head, studying her again, then tapped its ear.

“Are you asking me if I understand you? Because I don’t. But you can understand me, can’t you? You have something in your ear which translates what I’m saying.” she added slowly and Kra’caow nodded again.

The sheer strangeness of the situation finally hit her.

She was sitting half-naked in a cell, talking to a giant bird.

She would have thought she was dreaming, but the cold floor, the lingering ache in her head—the sheer physical reality of her surroundings made it disturbingly obvious that she was awake.

And if she wasn’t dreaming… where was she?

Not on Earth.

She wanted to dismiss the idea, but she couldn’t and she looked over at Kra’caow.

“I’m not on my planet anymore, am I?” she asked, her voice trembling.

Kra’caow nodded slowly, and she was sure she could see a flicker of pity in its eyes.

“But why? Why would they take me?”

Kra’caow hesitated, clearly reluctant to answer her.

“Please? I’d rather know.”

With another one of those oddly human shrugs, it held up one hand, curving the claws of its thumb and finger together to make a circle. Then it used a finger from its other hand to plunge in and out of the circle. The meaning of the crude gesture was horribly, sickeningly clear.

“Sex?” she whispered. “They want me for sex?”

It nodded sadly.

“And you? Is that why you’re here?”

The sound Kra’caow made was clearly a laugh as it shook its head. Lifting its hands again, it began jabbing the claws of each hand at the other in a series of rapid strikes.

“Fighting? They want you to fight?”

Kra’caow nodded. With those wicked claws and that predatory beak, she could imagine it would make a deadly opponent.

“Do… Do you want to fight?”

It shook its head, looking away from her, and she sighed.

“I don’t want to have sex either.”

A melancholy silence fell, but curiosity eventually compelled her to break it.

“I hope I’m not insulting you, but are you male or female?”

It gave that harsh laugh again, then extended the feathers around its head and shoulders in a magnificent, colorful display.

“Male,” she said, and he nodded.

Before she could ask any more questions, the sound of footsteps echoed down the corridor. A shiver ran down her spine as she recognized them—the same heavy tread that had been behind her in the fog.

Kra’caow made a low, urgent noise and when she looked at him, he wrapped both hands around his beak.

“You’re telling me to be quiet,” she half-whispered.

He gave an abrupt nod and retreated to the rear of his cell as she backed away from the bars.

A moment later, two figures appeared in front of her cell.

At first glance, they looked almost human, except they had heavy, overhanging brows and pronounced jaws, more like Neanderthals than modern men.

But there were other subtle differences in their facial structure and their eyes—differences that were decidedly not human.

The two of them stared at her as they began talking in a strange, guttural language. She couldn’t understand them, of course, but given the way their eyes traveled over her body and the way they leered at her, she was just as glad she couldn’t.

One of them barked something at her, but she had no idea what he was saying and remembering Kra’caow’s warning, she kept her mouth shut and gave him a blank look.

He pulled something small and shiny out of his pocket, but the other guard grabbed his arm.

The two of them argued for a few moments before stomping away, and she gave a sigh of relief.

She looked over at Kra’caow, who had returned to the front of his cell. “Do you know what they wanted to give me?”

He nodded and tapped his ear.

“A translator?”

He nodded again.

“I wonder why the other one wouldn’t let him. I can’t answer them if I don’t understand the question.”

Kra’caow shrugged, then rubbed his thumb across his fingers several times in an apparently universal gesture.

“Money?” she guessed. “He didn’t want to do it because the translator costs money?”

He nodded, and a bitter laugh escaped her. “So they’re not only cruel, but cheap as well.”

The bright white light suddenly faded, replaced by a dim, reddish glow. Kra’caow retreated to the bunk at the back of his cell and pulled a feathered arm over his head.

“Must be night time,” she muttered and followed suit, wrapping her arms around her legs as she huddled in one corner of the metal bunk. The cold metal leached the heat from her body, the thin shift providing no warmth, no comfort.

How could this have happened to her? She was just an ordinary person with an ordinary life. Working as an accountant paid well, but it was simply a routine job. How long would it be before her boss missed her? Or would they just assume she quit?

What would happen to her cozy little apartment with her jewelry making table in front of the big window? Would someone discard her neatly arranged collection of wires and beads? How long before her plants died? And why was she even worrying about things like that?

Because it’s better than thinking about what’s going to happen to me.

The horror of the situation kept creeping over her. This was real. This was actually happening to her. She was on an alien spaceship, being taken somewhere to have sex against her will.

She shuddered at the thought, her mind filled with a horrifying array of possible scenarios.

Would it be one of the Neanderthal guards?

Or some other unknown alien? What were they planning to do with her?

The thought of the unknown future terrified her.

A tear slipped down her cheek, and then another, and she finally buried her face in her arms and gave in to despair.